The Ultimate Incentive muddles along

Dinah93

Aww welcome back ROTE, glad to hear things are good your side too, but yes it's a real worry what things are going to look like in 6 or 12 months. I feel almost like we've had some sort of golden age (although it didn't seem all that golden) and now things are looking a lot less sunshine and rainbows on the horizon. 

From a purely selfish oh-!!!!!!-my-business-is-going-to-go-to-the-wall perspective, I'm nervous about the number of people pre-emptively cutting back. Completely understand building a buffer makes sense for so many households personal finances, but I've got nearly 30 staff now and I can't see me still having 30 staff at Easter if people do have to stop spending en masse. 

I've written my to do list for this evening and tomorrow (an ambitious one considering I only have about 6 hours child free) and there are 21 things. I'll report back how I do, really need to find my focus tbh. 

Dinah93

Most important job first. MSE signature updated 

This is spread over 2 credit cards and £1000 to my mum. Technically our business owes us significantly more than this, and is why these cards have gone back up when they were cleared, but as I've mentioned I'm not taking money back out the business until it pays off other things it owes first. 

roomontheend

Wow, that’s a difference. You have to be pleased with that.  

30 employees that is super, the business has really grown.  I understand your concern going forward as people will try and make cut backs but for the majority of people cancelling health club will be the last resort.

Dinah93

So, in the end had no childfree time today as mum got roped into something for my grandad, and then NIM had to go to one of our venues after work to pick up some equipment for maintenance and safety checking as it's not needed again until the 12th, so ideal time to do it. 

My to do list grew a bit (as it always does) and I didn't get as much done as I hoped (as always happens) but of the 28 things to do I have 12 remaining, so that's not too bad when I had a very busy child-full day. Although I did set them on tidying their rooms so that got me several hours of piece while they avoided tidying and read "in secret" 

Dinah93

Morning all, anyone have nice plans today? I do have a childfree 24 hours as the kids have gone to stay with their nana, so going to be plodding on with the to do list. 

Applied for a cashback debit card this morning, annoyingly it doesn't do joint accounts, and NIM doesn't ever check bank accounts so it's pointless getting one each, but I figure getting one account and I link the card to my google wallet and have the details for online payments will cover 95% of what I spend anyway, it's very, very rare I spend in person and over the contactless limit for paying with my phone. 

I've also updated our household budget for the first time in nearly a year. Grief that was depressing. Every single cost has gone up, there are a couple of kids clubs they don't do anymore, but those they do do have all gone up by 15-50%. NIMs life insurance is now a better policy but £32 more a month. Energy has gone up £385 a month. I wasn't saving at all for a pension so that's £380 or so a month I wasn't saving, I know it's a good saving but still, ouch all round. Overall it's coming in at more than £1000 more a month, completely wiping out NIMs promotion pay rise. 

It's my pay day today, I'm only doing minimum wage at the moment, but I've paid £400 off the highest rate credit card 

Almost everything left on my to do list for today is social media content. We're having to be a lot more active to generate organic traffic, posts people engage with and share not just the obvious salesy stuff, but it takes a lot of time, at the moment I'd say I spend at least 2 working days a week on social media content for the companies. I'm meeting with the local uni in the next few weeks as they have a placement scheme, see about the possibility of taking on a 3rd year student for a term to do digital marketing, I'll be very happy if that works out. 

So keep your fingers crossed for me that I finish all my social media stuff on the list today, so I can actually start moving forwards with business building rather than business maintaining tasks tomorrow before the kids come back. 

Dinah93

Work is not going well, my booking site won't load on my computer. It will for other people, but not me, making it very hard for me to see our timetables, create events etc. So I'm just pottering about making graphic templates in Canva until it decides to work again. 

roomontheend

Did you manage to get it working? It sounds like you may need an update at your end.  

How many businesses do you have? I thought you were only doing the yoga studio. 

There is some good funding about for taking on apprentices. It might be something to look into.

Dinah93

We sort of diversified, so we still run the studio but it's not just yoga any more. And we have it in 12 locations as well. On top of that we also have a business delivering yoga in schools (which we're currently exploring turning into a CIC), and one doing retreats and then we've also been working to franchise the company.... and then trying to set up an online training platform too. So it keeps me busy. 

Still 4 things on the to do list, no matter how long I allow for social media crap, it's never enough. Might have been more had I not got distracted and cleaned and reorganised two kitchen cupboards (all because I noticed some balsamic had leaked, cleaning that patch sort of spiraled). 

I watch a lot of youtube finance things while I work, and I've started watching the side hustle ones again, one I saw today was interesting, on using affiliate links in combo with Pinterest, so I'll give that a go once I'm on top of the urgent work stuff (so, never). 

We have an open day for one of the venues this Sunday, unfortunately the furthest away one (nearly 2 hours each way) so that's going to eat up most of the day, and Saturday is my SIL's baby shower (as well as our wedding anniversary) so probably also a pretty busy day. We have a big performance even in another of the studios at the end of this week, as well as NIM having surgery on Thursday, then he'll be off his feet for 2-3 weeks so I'll need to do all the kids club runs as well as the household stuff, work etc, and I'm delivering my second teacher training weekend the 10th and 11th too so all in all I think it could be a pretty scattered few weeks before I can settle down to making real headway, but I'll keep posting because it keeps me on the straight and narrow, and seeing progress even if it's small. 

Dinah93

Oh and I set up Amazon price alerts for a few bits I want to get the kids for Christmas but I'm hoping it'll go on sale between now and then, as well as buying a couple of second hand books of sheet music for DD's favourite musicals which were only £3 delivered, hopefully they'll be in good condition so I can give them to her at Christmas as I know she'll love them. I've already paid for most of her main present, which is tickets to 3 shows in London (she loves 1 on 1 time and the theatre as well, so I try to take her at least once a year). 

wendz86

Hope you managed to get some work done in the end.

£1000 is a lot extra to find a month. People are really going to struggle. My electric and gas is only £90 a month currently as i fixed last Nov so expecting that to go up a lot.

DD1 has her first day at secondary school today, she was very excited so hopefully she will have a good day. Having a treat day with DD2 so off to soft play and going to have lunch there too.